Of Great Cunning
by starry-eyes184
Summary: She clears her throat. "Please, Miss Potter, join your housemates at the… at the Slytherin table…" The girl's freckled face is throbbing, warm, cheeks burning. Follows Lily Potter after being sorted into Slytherin.
1. Prologue

A/N: I'm so, so not supposed to be using FFN while school's in session. But this is infinitely more interesting than what I'm actually _supposed_ to be doing. So this idea, I've seen, isn't exactly original- the Lily-Luna-is-a-Slytherin. But, hopefully you'll enjoy my spin on things. If I manage to finish that is. I'm notoriously bad at updates. Oh well. This is the prologue. I plan on about 7 chapters- one for each year. Should be eventually Scorpious/Lily. Because everyone loves Rose/Scorpious and of course that means I fell in love with the UC ship, as is my lot in life.

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

_Of Great Cunning_

_Prologue_

* * *

One word, and the world stops.

"_Slytherin!_"

No one breathes, no one moves.

The hum of conversation is frozen, dead in the throats of all. First years stand unmoving, their nervous twitters and the shuffling of their feet ceased. Older students, well-versed in the routine and monotony of the sorting ceremony, sit stiffly in their seats, all illicit chattering suddenly ended. No one laughs, or whispers, or casts a spell. Professors, ghosts, even the ever-tactless poltergeist- all quiet. The silence falls heavily over them all, filling the air with its unbroken noiselessness. Its presence bears down on them, rings in their ears.

The girl still sits on the wooden stool, her well-worn black loafers dangling a great distance from the ground, tiny feet crossed over one another. A single gray knee sock has slipped halfway down, piling around the left ankle, folded over itself sloppily and revealing a bruised shin. The most wise and ancient hat sits atop her fiery red hair, silent, unmoving, final in its judgment. Holding the scroll of names, the Deputy Head is a statue, arms and fingers sculpted midair in a graceless pose.

A knife slips off the edge of the Ravenclaw table. It clangs and shatters the spell of silence.

The room buzzes with uncertainty. One table- Gryffindor- erupts with cries of protest. An army of redheaded Weasley-Potters and all their extended family friends rage against the injustice. At least two professors are quite in agreement with them. The noise escalates, in a great contrast to the moments before, until the Headmistress ends it all with a spelled voice, booming over the din. Silence reigns again. She ends the protests, forces the students into their seats with threats.

"Continue with the sorting," she orders, giving her nod to the witch on the floor.

The Deputy Head clears her throat, and gently lowers the scroll. "Please, Miss Potter, join your housemates at the… at the Slytherin table…"

She steps forward to reclaim the sorting hat, pulling it slowly away from the eleven-year-old's head. Strands of red-gold hair cling to the inside of the cap. The girl's freckled face is throbbing, warm, cheeks burning. She is full of blood, boiling in the veins closest to her skin. Otherwise, she betrays no emotion. Her thin pink lips are pressed together tightly, eyebrows curved and even, nose unwrinkled. The green eyes are dry, not glassy, and her fists remain unclenched, palms open on her lap. She sucks in a breath, just one, and holds the ache deep in her chest, keeps it from bursting out of her.

"Are you… would you like to go to the hospital wing, dear?" The Deputy Head whispers into one fire-red ear.

The Potter girl slides off the plain wooden stool, the pleats of her skirt hiking up briefly behind her. The loafers hit the floor softly.

"No, thank you."

As the stunned population watches, Lily Potter slowly makes her way across the room to face her housemates. Inside, she remains frozen, iced over with pure shock. Her breathing is labored, her face still hot with blush. She can't decide if its anger, or embarrassment, or fear. She pulls out a chair, surrounded by empty seats, and lowers herself into it. Lily turns her head in the direction of the filled end of the table, where those of great cunning and pure blood sit staring back.

"Powers, Alexis."

The sorting goes on.

She doesn't meet their eyes.

* * *

A/N: So tell me what you think! Obviously this is nothing like, nor will it be like, my other HP stories. Hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway!


	2. Chapter 1: First Year

A/N: Sorry it's taken so long, but I did warn you last chapter and I am a busy girl, so sometimes it might be a while between updates, but here's an extra long chapter for your patience. Also, for those not well-versed in literary terms, I want to note that there is a difference between **author's voice** and **character voice**. That's why the following chapter doesn't seem like it might have come out of an eleven-year-old's head. See below for more authors' notes about the story.

* * *

_Chapter 1: First Year_

This is how it starts: for the first three months, the Slytherins leave her alone.

It seems they don't have any idea what to make of the situation, either.

For that, Lily Potter is very much grateful. It's difficult enough to get used to without the added weight of animosity from her housemates on her shoulders. She'd been expecting the warm red-and-gold tones of the Gryffindor tower. Instead, she's been banished to the dungeons, and it is nothing like home. The sharp-tongued silver snakes and eerie green light that bathe the Slytherin common room leave her in a permanent state of unsettlement. Not to mention the pervasive chill, in spite of the large fireplace at the center of the room. Her nose had gone runny for the first three weeks of term.

Still, perhaps the most uncomfortable of all is the ever-present silence from her fellow students.

Oh, they speak, of course, to each other. In fact, Lily is quite surprised to find that on the whole, her housemates are… well, normal. Mostly, anyway. They suck sugar quills, gripe over scrolls of homework, kiss in corners, chat and laugh. (The difference being, of course, the amount of inappropriately offensive jokes about muggles.) But, never with her.

Not that she's bothered about it.

On the contrary, if she were to name one positive thing about living in Slytherin house, it would probably be the strength of their silent agreement to ignore one another. Lily doesn't want anything to do with the wicked crew of slimy gits, and they don't want anything to do with a saintly (ha) Weasley-Potter. Their arrangement works on both sides, but even so, Lily can't help but feel a bit lonely, in the end.

The professors give her sympathetic looks in class when she consistently chooses to work with students from houses outside of her own, but Lily doesn't mind. She makes acquaintances in Hufflepuff and she knows scads of Ravenclaws, and the Gryffindors embrace her like she's one of their own. In the company of friends and family, she is stubborn, lively, and sharp-witted. Her evenings are spent among them, until the clock ticks to curfew and she scrambles into her own common room, thrumming with the happiness of being herself.

Then, of course, is the crushing reminder that she has lost everything good about her day simply by crossing the threshold into Slytherin house.

When she enters, they don't look at her. They look _through_ her. As if she isn't flesh and blood and bone, but air and space and dust.

She carries on as if it doesn't bother her, because frankly, letting them know she's got a weakness is the quickest way to getting herself into trouble. Most nights Lily just climbs the staircase to her dormitory and shrouds herself in the crushed velvet curtains of her four-poster. She cries, sometimes, privately, because she's eleven and alone and even the bravest of witches cry every now and again (but bitterly, she reminds herself it doesn't matter anyway, because after all she's not a Gryffindor so maybe she was never very brave in the first place).

Her roommates either don't hear or don't care enough to mention it. There are four girls— Posey Parkinson, Evelyn Tremlett, Davinia Warrington, and Sarah Smith— all pureblood, and quite willing to ignore her.

Despite this, the tiny redhead has resigned herself to enduring it all. Lily has more tolerance than her brash, reckless relatives. Her anger doesn't burn, it simmers, and she has every intention of letting it go until the first day of that fourth month, when everything is shot to hell.

It begins in charms, because of course it would, charms being Lily's worst subject.

"How are you _doing_ that?"

Frustration fills her as she glares down at the unmoving twig on the desk in front of her. Beside her, Heather Boot's own twig is successfully making neat circles in mid-air, for what must be the seventeenth time since they'd begun the lesson. The classroom is full of Slytherins and Hufflepuffs who have met with similar results, most of them managing to effectively master the spell.

Lily narrows her eyes slightly at the back of Posey Parkinson's tangled black curls. She's done the spell three times already, despite having spent most of the class period making moony eyes at Quentin Duke.

"It's easy, Lily, just watch your movements," Heather offers gently, pressing a guiding hand on Lily's thin wrist. "You're too stiff, you need more flow."

Heather's instruction is well-intentioned, but nevertheless unhelpful, and Lily's twig makes two jagged loops before clattering onto the desk miserably.

"Oh, bugger it all! I hate charms," Lily cries, leaning against the table.

Posey, being directly in front of them, turns slowly, smirking. She has miraculously heard them, and Lily irritably muses that she must have given up, however briefly, on Quentin. The sight of her from the front is no more flattering than from the back, and her pointed features tighten further, if possible, into a self-satisfied grin. She looks rather like a sour-faced possum.

"Can't quite get it, Potter? Maybe you should have your famous Daddy buy you private lessons," Posey sneers.

It is the third time Posey has ever spoken to her. Lily silently wishes it happened less often.

"Shut up, Parkinson, mind your own! I'm doing just fine, thanks," she mutters, taking her wand up, and with false confidence, carefully attempting the spell again. Of course, false confidence is false for good reason, and it is a spectacular failure. The twig hovers slightly, makes a quarter rotation, and gives a great shudder before falling once more to the desk.

Posey's snort of laughter is enough to make Lily boil over with anger. She can feel the flood of blood to her cheeks, and she grips her wand more forcefully.

"Are you sure you're a witch?"

"Quit it, Parkinson," Heather quietly admonishes. "She'll get it."

"No, but really… You're awfully confident for someone who seems to have so little natural ability."

"Well thanks for all this genuine concern, but I think I'm quite sure," Lily replies rigidly.

"Really and truly sure? Because frankly, all I've seen you do so far this year is a lot of crying. Very little magic about that…"

Lily straightens her back stiffly. Posey is just asking for a fight by bringing up the crying business, and she would give anything to be able to climb over the desk and deck her in her crooked teeth. But she can't. Her fingers twitch around the smooth wood of her wand and the frustration is so strong Lily can feel the burn of it rush through her veins, stinging the backs of her eyes.

"Going to give us a practical demonstration now, Potter? A bit of tears to share with the class? Oh, poor baby," Posey coos.

Lily positively bubbles with fury, but does nothing. As much as she wants to see Posey's teeth run red with blood, Lily is keenly aware that actually doing harm to Posey would quickly shatter the silent pact she has going with the Slytherin house. She's not quite ready to take that risk.

And so, instead, Lily points at the twig in front of her and angrily makes a wide, forceful arc, blindly waving her wand without purpose.

Of course, the results are immediately disastrous.

"Lily!" Heather hisses in warning.

Lily struggles to compose herself, darting her attention back to the twig, but it is far too late. The crooked trajectory of her wand causes the twig to shoot off the desk with a bang, zooming through the air like a firecracker, sparks flying out from the back. Posey sees the path of the twig only in time to shriek out a long, high-pitched swear before it lodges itself shallowly into her eye socket.

There is blood and screaming and Lily knows she's in for it.

Posey is clutching at her eye with both hands, and red, the same red Lily had longed to see mark Posey's teeth just moments ago, leaks out from the cupped fingers. Her stomach lurches uncomfortably as the tiny first-year continues to wail. The sound rings out like nails jammed into her ears, sharp and cutting and raw, all at once ripping through her body. Quentin stands nearby looking horrified and useless, clawing at the robes on Posey's back.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Heather chants, bringing her hands up to her face.

Professor Nott looks up sharply from her paperwork at the front of the room, her shrewd green eyes honing in on the cause of disruption immediately. Posey is rushed out of the room to the hospital wing, escorted by Sarah, who is pale with nausea. The blood is quickly scoured away, but the queasy mix of disquiet and disgust hangs in the air like a stain on their collective consciousness until Professor Nott steadily declares class dismissed early.

"I think that's quite enough charms for this afternoon, children."

Lily is asked to stay after.

Professor Nott, head of Slytherin house, does not have a reputation for being particularly kind to members of any house, let alone her own. In fact, she is rather fond of sending students to weekly detention for even the smallest of crimes, and Lily receives an indefinite amount of those, to end only "when you understand that the difference between finer wand mechanics and amateur foolishness can mean someone's eye, Miss Potter. Literally."

Posey Parkinson has to wear an eye-patch for the next six weeks and suddenly things are no longer quite as smooth as they had been.

Davinia Warrington spills ink down Lily's back in Potions. Second-year Slytherin Camilla Rockwell stomps on her shoes every time they pass between classes. Quentin Duke and Xavier Edgecombe take turns jinxing her in the library, hitting her back with spell after spell until the librarian chases them all out from the stacks of books and into the corridors. It becomes some kind of twisted game, the object of which appears to be tormenting Lily into a permanent state of fear.

Predator and Prey.

She considers briefly going to an adult about all of this, but quickly scraps the idea. Crying to her father, or her uncles, or Professor Longbottom would only mean further condemnation. Her next thought is to go to her brothers and her cousins. Her family is vaguely aware of the situation, in a fuzzy, uncertain way, but they are mostly ignorant of the severity. Slytherins are nothing if not subtly clever with their tactics. Lily might have been impressed by the organization and implementation of it all, if she weren't bearing the brunt of their cruel persecution.

She has no doubt that James and Albus would lead the Weasley rally against the Slytherin house, or that her cousins would willingly join the fight. Willingness, of course, is not the issue, but availability. After all, none of the other Weasleys are Slytherins, and only so much could be done from classrooms and corridors.

They could offer little protection from the attacks that took place in the quiet of the dungeons.

"Say, Potter?"

Lily looks up sharply from her seat near the fireplace. Upholstered in rich black velvet, it is the only place in the room she can feel any kind of warmth. Across the way, near the large stained-glass windows, sit Quentin, Xavier, and Sarah Smith.

They wear matching expressions of mischief, hardly a good sign.

"Hey, Potter, can you hear me?" Quentin calls amid poorly hidden chuckles. "Have you got ears?"

"What is it, Duke?" Lily mutters grudgingly.

"We were just wondering," Smith begins, as Xavier nudges her shoulder conspiratorially, "How it feels?"

The question hangs in the air dangerously, begging to be answered. Lily has no particular desire to play their game, but persistence isn't a quality they seem to lack (though they could all use a good dose of _tact_, in her opinion), and she doubts they'll simply leave it if she doesn't reply.

She takes the bait. What else can she do, really?

"How what feels, Smith?"

"Being a mistake," the dark-eyed girl says, her freckled face splitting into a wide grin.

When Lily's eyes don't light with understanding, or brim with tears, Smith helpfully enlightens her, to the further amusement of all present in the common room.

"After all, you're not really a Slytherin, are you? Just an accident. The Sorting Hat's little redheaded _joke_."

Lily's first instinct is, surprisingly, to simply hum her assent and agree with them. After all, it's the truth, isn't it? It was some kind of mix up that had landed her among her ambitious silver-hearted housemates. There are no other explanations, no other defenses or justifications for her presence here. She doesn't belong.

But before Lily can even begin to consent to Sarah's words, she is unexpectedly defended.

"The Sorting Hat doesn't make mistakes," a new voice interrupts. "Your parents, on the other hand, obviously do."

Smith's indignant squeak is audible even from across the room, a haughty gasp accompanied by several chuckles and jeers at her expense. Lily turns in the direction the cool tones have come from, near the entrance to the common room. A familiar figure sits on a high-backed chair, his white-blonde head bent over a neatly written scroll.

Scorpious Malfoy has just spoken on her behalf.

If Lily had not recognized his voice, she might not have believed it. She's baffled (along with the rest of the common room, of course) into momentary silence. Malfoy is a reasonably popular third-year with a family as notorious as her own. Growing up, Lily had come to think of them as enemies, in fact, despite her father's insistence otherwise. He comes from a long, pure-blooded line of mostly dark wizards; he is a legacy of the Slytherin house.

Malfoy, unlike herself, _belongs_ here.

"Lay off, Malfoy, we're just having a bit of fun with her," Xavier mutters. "Don't have to be so serious."

Malfoy doesn't look back up, but continues to focus his gaze on the scroll in front of him, as if he'd expected the conversation to end. Lily peers over at him, considering. He hasn't spoken to her before, hasn't really acknowledged her at all, which makes the whole thing even _more_ odd. What reason could he have for speaking out?

Malfoy's eyes leave the scroll unexpectedly, honing in on Lily. Immediately she feels a quick burst of embarrassment at being caught looking. Her face is undoubtedly red with full blush, but Malfoy doesn't look away. His eyes are a sad gray, a bit like Teddy's when he's unhappy, but sharper somehow. Lily fidgets uncomfortably under his scrutiny, until Smith speaks once again, drawing her attention back to the trio by the windows.

"Besides, she deserves it, after what she did to Posey," sniffs Sarah as she primly adjusts her skirt.

"_That_ was an accident," Lily sharply interjects. "Besides, she was just about _asking_ for it, and you know it, Smith."

"Well it might have been, but it was an accident that left her practically _blind_," Duke says, rolling his eyes.

"I've apologized for that already, can't you just leave it?"

The three sharp-toothed smirks she receives in response are answer enough, as together her bullies exit the common room. Lily feels helpless in that moment, and the anger surfaces again. But she quietly resolves to suppress it. The last time she'd let herself trip up, it had led to… well, _this_. Still, though, suppressed or not, the rage was there, lodged in her throat, in her stomach, in her tightening fists.

"Whining like a baby hippogriff isn't going to stop them, you know."

Lily's heart jumps at Malfoy's interruption. As before, he is still diligently scrawling his homework, attention unwavering, as if he'd never spoken at all. It's more than a little disturbing, actually, and Lily finds her skin pricking a bit in disconcertment.

"I'm not whining," Lily defends, adjusting her legs beneath her.

"You are. You're whining and you're taking everything they give you, without really doing anything about it. Like a baby hippogriff. A weakling."

"It isn't… Why do you even care, anyway," Lily asks, rubbing the chilled skin on her arms.

"I don't, Potter," Malfoy replies honestly. "But you make it so _easy_. That's the point. You sit there and take abuse, from anyone. You either like it, or you're stupid."

His tone is simple, matter-of-fact, and the way he delivers his advice makes Lily's indignation surge in response, but she is surprised to find it is unfounded. She can't even claim to be indignant, because Malfoy's _right_. The cool shock of reality spills over her, and Lily suddenly gets it. Truly gets it. All this time, she had been trying so hard not to disrupt the silent pact at the risk of drawing attention to herself. But really, she'd been opening herself up to their harassment. They hadn't thought she deserved to be bullied until she _let_ them do it.

The weight of her sudden realization simmers in her mind as she stares blankly ahead. The common room has steadily emptied for the evening, all but for Evelyn Tremlett, herself, and a handful of fourth years. Malfoy remains as well, the steady scritch-scratch of his quill a quiet reminder of his presence.

"Malfoy?"

A pause of his quill.

"Do you really think it wasn't a mistake? Am I really meant to be a Slytherin?"

There is a long string of silence that drags on, and Lily holds her breath. She isn't quite sure why it should matter whether or not Malfoy believed she was a true Slytherin or not, but it does, very much so. Perhaps it was because the thought of having one person behind her, even one who didn't care for or about her, gave her a pinpricks worth of happiness.

"You are," Malfoy replies evenly.

"But… How do you know that?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well… Honestly, _yes_, it does," Lily blinks.

Malfoy looks up from his work and frowns, meeting her eyes. Lily's skin prickles automatically, and the smooth pale skin on his forehead wrinkles in consideration.

"If you don't know, then you'll have to prove it to yourself."

Lily purses her pink lips together, annoyed. Scorpious spoke in ridiculous riddles, and he was being more vague than necessary. How could she prove it to herself, if she didn't _believe_ it? Didn't he understand that?

"Bloody tell me _how_, then," she snaps irritably.

There is some commotion at the entrance to the common room as Sarah, Quentin, and Xavier reenter to meet curfew. Scorpious meets Lily's eyes, a single arched brow raised in her direction. Lily turns toward the group, watching Sarah cackle at something Xavier is saying, before looking back at Malfoy's steady gaze. She feels the anger, still burning, within reach and sharp as ever. Her stomach lurches in response to their presence and her blood thrums with the strange heat of intense animosity. Lily unfolds her legs from the chair, plants her scuffed loafers neatly on the floor and grips the smooth oak of her wand in her right hand. She stands and begins to stalk quietly toward the trio in the corner, raising her arm steadily in preparation.

As she passes Malfoy in his high-backed chair, she hears the pause in the squeak of his quill. Lily looks away from her targets briefly, and meets his eyes in understanding.

_Challenge accepted._

_

* * *

_

A/N: No, she doesn't turn into an evil bully herself, and she doesn't curse them. Just a bit of standing up for herself, nothing serious! In any case, I thought I'd leave you guys with some thoughts about Lily's portrayal.

1) I don't really read any LLP fic, but my understanding from the summaries is that even when in Slytherin she's either feisty, and prank-y, or she's the me-against-the-world, angst-ridden type. But I believe that if you put her in Slytherin, she should _be_ a Slytherin. Which doesn't mean evil or angry. She's independent and contemplative. But I also made her vulnerable and childish as an eleven-year-old.

2) Additionally, I don't get why people assume Slytherins would automatically viciously hate her. I think there might be some animosity, yeah, but they need a more legitimate reason in a post-war world than just that she's related to Harry. Hence Posey's eye, leading to the bullying, which is what ultimately forces Lily to come to terms with actually being a Slytherin.

Anyway, let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 2: First Year Part II

A/N: Ehhh. This is the last of First Year, I don't want to spend too long on each year, 'cause otherwise I'd be stuck doing this fic foreverrr.

* * *

_Chapter 2: First Year (Part II)_

She imagines this is what it feels like to take on an enemy during wartime.

A bit dramatic, yes, but while living this particular moment of her life, Lily can't think of anything worse than facing sharp-tongued Sarah Smith and her team of tyrants. (Later, obviously, she'll think differently, but _later_ doesn't usually factor into these kinds of situations.) Adrenaline rises in her, and she can feel it working through the beating of her heart. It's fight or flight at this point, and Lily knows which one she wants to choose, and which one she has to. (Hint: it isn't the easy option.)

"Smith," Lily calls, in an effort to catch her notice.

Sarah turns mid-cackle, and fixes her glinting dark eyes at Lily as she crosses the common room, wand still very much at the ready. Duke and Edgecombe stumble to attention behind her, but eventually Lily has them focused on her as well. She can feel the hum of conversation soften, and tries to block out all other sounds. Knowing the other Slytherins are watching her turning point, her moment of truth, is only going to increase her chances of failure, so she concentrates on her own breathing.

Steady, even. In, out.

"Potter?" Smith asks, sounding amused by the prospect of another spat.

Smith can't know she's faltering, or else this harassment will never end. She'll never get even a second's worth of peace and comfort in her own house. Denying she was a Slytherin hadn't gotten her very far, in the end. She'd had a good cry (or twelve) about it, and now it is time to act. Lily still doesn't know if she truly belongs here, but Malfoy's unwavering and unexpected support is a welcomed source of reassurance. Knowing he is behind her— literally and figuratively, gives her a brief swell of confidence.

If Smith wanted to _fight_ like a Slytherin, then Lily would _be_ a Slytherin.

"You're going to stop."

"Stop what, Potter? I'm not doing anything. Except breathing, and Merlin knows I'm certainly not going to stop _that_."

Smith's easy words cause a bit of light laughter around them. Condescending and full of arrogance— but then, Smith has a right to be arrogant. She knows without hesitation that no one person in the room is questioning her right to be here. Closing her eyes, Lily summons the courage to carry on with all of this, and silently reminds herself not to listen to the others.

"Treating me like this," she says sharply.

"Like what, Potter?" Edgecombe asks with a dopey grin.

"You know very well what I'm talking about, so quit acting stupid," she snaps, briefly losing her cool.

"And why should we do that?" Smith asks, raising a thin brow.

"Because I'm not a mistake," Lily says, reigning in her anger. "I belong here, just as much as anyone else does."

"Is that so," Smith hums.

Behind her, Quentin and Xavier chuckle together, looking at her with disbelief. Lily suppresses the urge to call out a hex. Hexes are childish. She doesn't want to fight like a child; she wants to fight dirty. She wants to fight with words. And there are six that Lily knows will shatter Smith's smile, six words that will break her in half and finally put her into her rightful place.

"More than you, that's for sure," Lily says, coughing to disguise her nerves.

"Oh, that's a laugh," Smith says, breaking out into cackles. "You're less of a Slytherin than Helga Hufflepuff was!"

Lily lets Sarah have her brief moment of amusement. The boys snort and guffaw right along, and soon the background noise from her housemates is no longer avoidable. They're like a pack of hyenas, giddy and greedily circling a wounded animal. But before Smith can get in another word, Lily takes two steps in her direction, narrows her eyes, and strikes out at her with all the venom she can muster.

"Your family is a disgrace to the wizarding world, Smith. I know all about them. Deserters and trash, that's the kind of people you come from."

The reaction is immediate. Smith's face reddens and pinches into an ugly scowl aimed at Lily. Her stomach flips uncomfortably as she realizes there's no going back from this point, she'll have to see this whole thing through or risk being on the wrong end of Sarah Smith's best hex.

"Why you troll-faced daughter of a halfblood! You had better take that back, while you still can Potter," Sarah growls, charging toward Lily with hatred in her eyes.

"Make me," she challenges. "Go ahead. But it won't change the facts. It won't bleed away your bad breeding."

Lily wonders if it's possible to explode from anger. She knows when she was a little kid, her accidental magic and manifested itself during her most volatile, hot-blooded moments. If Sarah explodes, she thinks to herself, she'll certainly have gotten her message across. No doubt about it.

"I— _we_ will not stop treating you this way, because it's the way you _deserve_ to be treated. Don't you get it?"

"I don't think _you_ get it, Smith. Because if you don't stop, I'm going to fight back. And I'm going to fight back so that you feel the hurt in ways that you won't be able to undo with magic," Lily threatens, stepping closer with a fierce look.

Smith holds her gaze for a while after, unblinking. Lily stares back at her, unwilling to back down, though she feels the fear still pumping in her veins. She hopes against all odds that Smith doesn't call her bluff, that she doesn't simply laugh in her face and call her some other highly offensive slur before trailing up to the first year dormitories. Lily had obviously gotten to her with the comment about her family's dishonorable past. Many of the Slytherins in the room had parents and grandparents that fought with Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But at least they had fought. Sarah's family had run away, hiding like cowards. Not because they couldn't fight, but because they were too afraid to die. You couldn't come back from that. Smith hadn't responded, because there was no real answer to give. Lily had ripped out her biggest shame and exposed it in front of the whole common room.

"Fine," Sarah says, after a few heart-pounding moments of silence. "We'll leave you alone. But that still doesn't mean you're one of us, Potter."

Smith flicks her eyes, looking Lily up and down with disgust, before flouncing off toward the staircases, brown hair swinging against her shoulders. Quentin and Xavier look after her with disappointment in their eyes, but don't spare Lily a second glance as they separate and leave the common room. When it's finally over, Lily feels a rush of relief so powerful it makes her knees weak. Stumbling, she crosses to the nearest chair and slumps down in it, breathing deep and trying to slow the rapid-fire beat of her heart. Her stomach is fluttering and her nerves feel electrified with energy.

Victory is, it seems, simultaneously the best and worst feeling she's ever had.

Unable to suppress the large, shining smile that breaks out, Lily turns toward the opposite side of the room, seeking out Scorpious with her eyes. She is eager to know what he thinks of her triumph, of her words, of her _Slytherin_. The seat he had been occupying, however, is entirely empty. The only sign that he'd even been there, that she hadn't imagined the whole thing, is his quill, left behind on the seat of the chair.

She's embarrassed by the amount of disappointment she feels. After all, what reason did Scorpious Malfoy have to stay, anyway? He stood up for her, yes, but that meant very little, in the long run. Perhaps he had simply been tired of Parkinson, Smith, and their underlings interrupting his studies to play their wicked games. Standing up slowly, Lily picks up the quill, pinching the fine dark feather between her thumb and forefinger. There is still ink on the pointed tip, dry, but sticky. She slips the discarded quill into the pocked of her robe, and leaves for the dormitory.

She sleeps heavy, deep, and happily, waking up to a world that feels new.

At breakfast, Lily chooses to eat with her family, taking a seat on the end of the Gryffindor table facing the wall. She can feel a pair of eyes on her back from across the room as she takes a long, tangy sip of pulpy orange juice. She smirks into her glass, knowing without looking that it is Posey, who has no doubt by now heard from Smith about last night's confrontation.

"—obviously the favorite to win. No competition!"

"Oh, come on Fred, you have to know the Tornados have the advantage. They're all flying on brand new Stormrunners, and the Harpies have still got Firebolt VI's. That broom is as old as the hair on Merlin's beard!"

"But guys, what about the Canons? My dad says this is going to be their year."

Fred and James each look at Hugo, then at each other, breaking out into uproarious laughter. Lily joins in, giddily enjoying this moment away from Slytherins of any kind. Though she'd proven herself worthy, she still wasn't sure she _wanted_ to be a part of her house, even if she could be. This is the place where she feels most happy. These are the people that make her feel like she can be herself.

"Stop laughing! The Canons are going to kick _arse_—"

"Hugo! Don't you dare start swearing! I'm going to write Mum," Rose scolds with a mouthful of eggs, before shoveling in another spoonful.

"Are you going to include a note about your table manners, Rosie?" Fred asks, waggling his red-brown eyebrows. "I'm sure Aunt Hermione would be positively shocked to hear about the way you've been eating."

"I have excellent table manners!" Rose cries indignantly, yellow crumbs of egg flying out across the table.

"Well you've just ruined _my _breakfast," Lily says with a light-hearted smile, pushing away her half-eaten bowl of oatmeal.

The Weasley end of the table chuckles together as Rose blushes, and it feels like home until Lily accidentally catches a glimpse of a figure in the wide doorway. Her smile slowly disappears and she watches with interest as Malfoy walks into the Great Hall, the center of a small group of third year Slytherins. Lily silently wills his gray eyes to land on her at the Gryffindor table, but they never do. Instead, he strides with purpose to the Slytherin half of the room. She wonders what she might of done if he _had _looked her way, but comes up with no answer.

"— heard he jinxed some poor first year in the library. The kid couldn't walk in a straight line for over a week. He'd just knock into things, left and right."

"I believe it! And I bet the kid didn't even do anything. Dad says—"

"Stop repeating everything Dad says, Hugo, it makes you sound stupid," says Rose haughtily. "But, well, while we're on the subject, our Dad _did_ tell us that his father wasn't exactly on the right side of the war, if you know what I mean."

"What do you know about him, Lils? He's one of your lot, after all," Fred asks, nudging her shoulder with a smarmy wink.

"About who?" Lily asks, flushing. She'd been too focused on Scorpious to follow the conversation.

"Malfoy, of course."

Lily tries to quell the blush as the blood rises again. Had they noticed her staring?

"Oh, well. I don't really know, he's not my year," Lily says finally, deciding to skip over the events of last night completely.

Her blush goes unnoticed, and the casual air she tries to force into her words works well enough on her family. None of them seem to have noticed she'd been lying, and if they had, they don't think enough of it to say anything. After all, they weren't exactly up-to-date on the whole Slytherin situation, anyway. And what would Lily Potter have to do with Scorpious Malfoy in the first place? Thinking about it makes it sound even more ridiculous than it had before. Malfoys, Potters, Weasleys— they were born enemies. It was a natural fact.

"The Mysterious Malfoy Boy. Sounds like a two knut novel, really," Rose says grinning.

"Well if it's anything like the ones you read, I bet it's full of love potions and glamour spells," Hugo cheekily adds. "_'Oh, Malfoy, snog me in the astronomy tower!'_"

Rose swats him on the back of the head, and the table erupts into more laughter, until it's time for the day's first lesson. Lily parts from her family reluctantly. She usually enjoys Herbology lessons. Uncle Neville is a brilliant professor; though plants will never be as interesting to her as they are to him, it could be worse. He gives it his best to make the lessons as quick and painless as possible.

Today they work with some kind of mildly acidic plant, so Lily spends most of the class elbow deep in dragonhide gloves. Lily packs the dirt into her orange clay pot. She presses until she can't see the gnarled root, trying not to aggravate the part of the plant responsible for spouting the goopy red acid while her cousin Lucy chatters away.

"Mum says we're going to visit our other grandparents in London during the holidays," says Lucy, ducking to avoid a sudden spray of red.

There is some light tittering from a nearby table, and she swears she hears the harsh sound of a whispered _mudblood_.Lily frowns and flicks her eyes up. Posey's ridiculous possum-face is angled toward a Ravenclaw girl Lily doesn't recognize. She ignores it though, and takes up the last pot on the table. The lesson is ending, and several of the other students have already begun to trickle out of the greenhouse, saying quiet goodbyes to Professor Longbottom.

"Oh," Lily replies, slinging her bag over her shoulder, waiting for Lucy to do the same.

"Yeah, I'm not too happy about it. Gramps snores and my Aunt Paula wears too much perfume."

The two girls slow and wave to Professor Longbottom, who gives them a cheerful grin as they quickly head out for Hogwarts. Lily has Potions in another few minutes, and Professor Davies is discussing the properties of ground batwings.

"Well, we can always owl," Lily says, shrugging as they join the throng of other Ravenclaws and Slytherin first years walking in the same direction.

Lucy stumbles and nearly trips over a rock; without pause, Lily steadies her. Lucy is the clumsiest Weasley. In front of them, Posey Parkinson's tangled black curls bob and sway as she gracefully hops over a wide muddy puddle. She still hasn't spoken about what happened the night before. She'd been up in the dormitory and missed Lily's stand against Smith and the others. Lily'd give her entire chocolate frog card collection to know what she thought about it.

"But I don't think we'll be able to owl. They kind of scare my Nana," Lucy says shrugging.

This time, Lily definitely recognizes Posey's stupid horsey laugh up ahead, and her shining eyes briefly shift back in their direction. Lily's blood boils briefly. As they catch up to the short blonde Ravenclaw and Parkinson, Lily meets her eyes with a grim, steady glare, though she has to suppress a shudder. The eye that had been skewered by the twig all those months ago had been healed, but it was changed. The eye is now exactly two shades lighter than the deep blue of her other iris. It's disconcerting, and creepy. Parkinson gives her an infuriatingly guiltless smile, one that causes Lily's lip to curl in disgust.

"Problem with muggles, Parkinson?" Lily calls out, fingers reaching to grab her wand.

"What are you on about, Potter? I've not done anything," Posey replies, using the same frustratingly innocent inflection that Sarah had the night before.

Lucy touches the warm fabric of Lily's robe, a calming mechanism meant to hold her back and supress Lily's well-known temper. Lucy's right to hold her back, because Parkinson is impossibly right, this time. It's true. The other Slytherin had laughed. She hadn't mocked them; she hadn't hexed them, or baited them with words. She could have, and in any other situation, she might have done it, too. The fact that she didn't take the given opportunity to make a crack about the Weasleys, and Lucy in particular, is so uncharacteristic that Lily's thrown by it for a moment.

Perhaps her words _have _affected Posey.

"You can relax the wand arm now, Potter," Parkinson snits, rolling her eyes and beginning the steps up toward Hogwarts. "There's no need for violence. I, for one, would like to make it to Potions with both my eyes still working properly, thanks."

Parkinson and her unknown friend disappear into the castle, noses stuck in the air and reeking of self-satisfaction. Lily grits her teeth, angry. She'd wanted to wriggle out from under Parkinson's thumb. She hadn't stopped to consider that living alongside her wasn't going to be any more pleasant than it had been when Posey was harrassing her. If this is what it's going to be like for the next seven years, then maybe she should have just gone to Durmstang. She hears the students are awful and it's always cold, but at least there'd have been an ocean between her and Posey Parkinson.

"Merlin, I hate her!"

"Lily, don't bother getting upset over Parkinson. She's awful to all of us. Sometimes people are just natural enemies. Born that way," Lucy says consolingly, giving her a one-armed hug.

"I know Luce," Lily sighs, smiling and leaning into her hug. "Thanks."

Lily does as her cousin suggests and loosens the tension in her right arm. She's right, of course. Whether or not she was meant to be a Slytherin, she was certainly not meant to be friends with any of them, that's for sure. Her fingers, halfway toward the pocket she keeps her wand in, relax and brush against something soft. Frowning as she ascends the last step toward the large wood doors, Lily pulls out a familiar soft black feather quill, dried and stained at the tip.

But then again, she thinks, twirling it between freckled fingers, sometimes your closest allies come from unexpected places.

* * *

A/N: Not really sure if I'm happy with the ending, but updating for me is so rare that I'm shocked I even had the inspiration to start this chapter, let alone finish it. Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 3: Second Year

A/N: Hello all, sorry for the wait again. This year Lily is going to try her hand at integration!

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_Chapter 3: Second Year_

The summer floats by like a hazy dream; sticky and full and sweet all at once.

The Potters go on a beach holiday. Lily's mum dusts off her old broom from the Harpy days, and the kids take turns making moonlit flights over the salty sea, watching the dark undulating waves catch and scatter the rays of yellow, silver and white. Girls chase James, and Lily laughs. Al chases girls, and Lily laughs harder. Freckles darken, sunburned skin peels, and ice cream melts, dribbling in chilly rivulets down waffle cones. They visit the Burrow, of course, and there are fresh glasses of iced pumpkin juice, and grass stains, and the sound of Roxanne's mischievous laughter as Al discovers a frog in his shoe. Lily sees the Scamander twins for Sunday afternoon trips to Diagon Alley, and shares copies of _Witch Weekly_ with Heather Boot, clipping out dancing photos of their favorite celebrities.

Summer is bliss.

If summer is a dream, getting to Platform 9 and ¾ is the brash bleating of an alarm clock cracking the edges of the fantasy, the inevitable reminder from the sharp-edged real world that she's run out of time. Lily had lingered too long, holding on desperately to the last days, hours, minutes before the commencement of the new school year. But as it always does, time runs short, Hogwarts letters are doled out, and the Weasley brood must now make a mad dash to catch the train on time.

"What time is it? Are we going to make it?" pants Lucy, nearly upsetting a trolley full of suitcases. "Oh! I'm sorry!"

Without pause, James gallantly steadies the cart and winks at the pretty blonde woman standing behind it. The girl is astonished and perplexed, but Lily can't really blame her. Watching a flock of children speed past Platform 3 in cloaks and robes, carrying all manner of trunks, boxes, and bags (some of which are quite loudly squawking) is likely not an everyday occurrence for the average King's Cross passenger.

"If we don't make it, I swear, Victoire—"

Vic sniffs haughtily but ignores Molly's empty, unfinished threat and continues to herd her cousins toward the entrance to the train. In other circumstances, Lily would have felt bad for her, but it really _is _her fault. She had gone to quite a lot of trouble this summer to prove to everyone that she was responsible enough to be considered one of the adults, but the frenzied trip to the station only seems to prove that being out of Hogwarts doesn't exactly qualify Vic to manage eleven teenagers. When Victoire should have been corralling them all promptly at 9:30, no one had been ready. Fred spent much of the morning trying to help Al and James hide an obscene amount of illegal Weasley's Wizard Wheezes underneath their robes, and it had taken an hour and the combined weight of Hugo, Lily, and Rose to close Dominique's trunk full of designer dress robes. The others, meanwhile, had dawdled until well past what Vic should have allowed.

As they jog by Platform 6, 7, then 8, Lily finally begins to see the familiar brick wall they are all about to disappear behind. There are a lot of Muggles around, and Vic tries desperately to get them all to go through one at a time, single file, organized and perfect, but of course there's just a mad rush of redheads and Lily grabs onto James' free hand, and pushes Hugo impatiently into Rose, and there's girlish squealing (probably from Fred, _really_) before, finally, they're all in one piece standing in front of the whistling red train. With only a minute left to catch their breaths and fan the heat away from their blotchy red faces, they all make their last minute adjustments. James helps Al and Lily get their trunks in order. Rose frantically tries to lull her hissing tabby Ursula into a state of calm.

"No one's lost any limbs," Dominique says, brushing aside her dark red hair to loop a blue-and-gray tie around her neck. "Well done."

"Oh, be quiet you wretched hag." Vic snaps as she struggles to straighten an irritated Louis' cloak. "Your sarcasm is not cute, and it's not funny."

"Reverting to name calling certainly isn't going to score you any maturity points with Mum and Dad. Besides, I was only paying you a compliment," Dom calls, blowing a kiss and boarding the train quickly.

Lily tries not to laugh at Dominique's sharp-edged quip, holding it in for the sake of not offending Vic. Ultimately, the second year girl fails and erupts into full-body guffaws as she climbs the steps to the Hogwarts Express behind her rest of her In the hall, she finds that the others have begun to search for compartments filled with friends. As the group quickly begins to break off, Lily and Molly are left alone, hoping to run across Heather, or the Scamander twins, or any familiar face. When Molly finds a compartment with one remaining seat, Lily gives her a half-hearted goodbye.

"You're sure you don't mind?"

"Of course not, I'll find somewhere to sit eventually."

"I'd just rather not leave you by yourself, Lils, it isn't—"

"Don't worry about me, I can handle myself," Lily replies, filling her voice with as much assurance as she can.

"Well… Alright, I guess," Molly says, hesitantly entering and sliding the door shut.

There's nothing left to do but go about continuing to knock on doors at random, searching for a place to sit the remaining ride to Hogwarts. Most of the cabins are taken, and many of them filled by unfriendly looking students guarding their privacy. She hasn't had much luck with the first half of the train. Raising a freckled fist to yet another door, Lily can't help but feel as if this year has gotten off to a rather horrible start. As the door slides open, she begins her well-practiced speech.

"Hi, I'm looking for a place to— I, _oh_."

The face belonging to the person who'd opened the door is most certainly familiar, if a bit unnerving. Scorpius Malfoy looks down at Lily with two raised brows, one hand on either side of the doorframe. For a half a heartbeat, Lily doesn't breathe, because she's been blindsided. It all sort of crashes over her, the heavy weight of _Slytherin_ and Merlin, she'd more than halfway forgotten all about it. Kind of ridiculous, really, but she'd _forgotten_ about sharing breathing space with Smith and Parkinson and the cold green glowing common room in the dungeons. Forgotten that going back to Hogwarts meant going back to all of that ugliness.

"You were saying?" Malfoy asks, shifting and crossing his arms.

Embarrassed, Lily flushes and clears her throat, trying to ground herself to the present. Her first instinct is to backpedal and pretend as if it was all a bizarre mistake, a mix up that led her to his door. But he's looking down at her and there's a sharp edge to the gray in his eyes that makes her wonder if this isn't somehow a sort of test for her, a sizing up that will determine the overarching opinion he forms on whether or not she is worthy. Worthy of what, exactly, she isn't sure, but Lily finds it doesn't matter what the question is, she wants to be the answer.

"I, well, this is a bit weird, but I need a place to sit the train ride…"

Scorpius doesn't falter at her words, because honestly he'd probably known what she wanted straight off. Lily switches her hips and wraps her arms around herself, gripping at the soft gray material of her sleeves. She doesn't elaborate, because there isn't anything else to it; it is no more complicated than the difference between _have_ and _have not_. Scorpius drops his arm and presses closer to the frame of the door, which Lily takes to be a silent invitation.

She nods her thanks and squeezes through, keeping a nice buffer of space between their bodies even as she crosses the threshold. In the compartment, she finds that Scorpius was not alone. Alexi Zambini and a fourth year girl are playing exploding snap, while her yearmate Evelyn Tremlett is lounging across from them with a copy of _The Quaffle Quandary_ in her lap. Behind her, Scorpius steps back into the compartment and shuts the door with an audible click. He quickly slides into an open spot on the left, leaving her standing awkwardly in the center of the room. The others look up as Lily clears her throat uncomfortably. Coiled up in his seat, Scorpius has the same look on his face as when he'd opened the door, silently observing her every movement. She hesitates only for a half a moment before sitting near Evelyn. For quite a while, no one speaks. It is pure silence, pure _discomfort_ that is so tangible she can taste it— bittersweet, like waxy black licorice heavy on her tongue.

"What did you think of Nott's class, Evelyn? She's an utter troll with all the first years."

Lily blinks owlishly across the compartment at the unknown fourth year who has spoken. Though she's not directed the question to Lily, her dark violet eyes are aimed at the redheaded first year. Evelyn adjusts the cat-eyed glasses on the end of her thin nose but doesn't turn away from the pages of her book. Not that Lily had expected her to. Over the course of last year, Evelyn hadn't been particularly friendly or welcoming to Lily. Mostly it was because Evelyn wasn't particularly friendly or welcoming to _anyone_. It was a rare occasion to hear her speak.

"She's alright," Evelyn murmurs in her soft honeyed voice.

"Alright? Well, sure she is, if by alright you mean unreasonably harsh and demanding!"

"Maybe if you'd turn in assignments rather than excuses, she'd be a little nicer to you, Alexi."

"Maybe if you took your head out of her arse you'd be a little less of a shit, Hattie."

Under normal circumstances, Lily might have laughed. Had the speakers been Hugo and Albus, or Heather Boot and Lysander, or anyone but two Slytherins in a cramped compartment on the Hogwarts Express, Lily would have burst into uncontrollable giggles. But as it stands now, Lily can only watch with a certain kind of fascination as the two fourth years continue to insult one another with petty quips. What is most striking about it is how _normal_ it is— a discussion that could have taken place between any group of students on the train. And yet, it's taking place here and now, and Lily Potter is quite near to being a part of a normal, civil conversation between a group of her housemates.

How utterly _bizarre_.

"And what about you, Potter? Any well-observed, deeply thought opinions on the teaching style of Professor Nott?" Scorpius interjects, a thin curious brow raised.

Lily swallows thickly and suppresses the urge to blurt out a shocked _'me?'_ in response to being suddenly included. She feels herself blush, the tips of her ears, her cheeks, the soft curve of her neck— all hot and probably noticeably reddened under the unexpected attention. Hattie and Alexi have stopped arguing amongst themselves, both waiting to hear her response.

"I— um, well," Lily stutters. "She's alright?"

From the corner of her eye, she notices Evelyn's mouth twist into a half-smirk. Scorpius looks away, and Lily can't help but feel like she's disappointed him in some significant way. It's not a good feeling, but she stubbornly refuses to re-enter the conversation by elaborating on her (Evelyn's, really) answer. She is not especially interested in appeasing any of them, not even him. Hattie quickly makes a joke about Alexi's improperly knotted tie, and sparks another argument. Lily spends the remainder of the train ride drifting in and out of awareness of their exchanges.

Happily, after bolting from the compartment upon arriving at Hogwarts, Lily manages to secure a carriage free of Slytherins.

Dominique is quite willing to share with her cousin. Her companions, a group of sixth years, have a few reservations about allowing second year Lily to join their party, but Dominique has a fierce way about her and there is very little debate over the issue before Lily is helped into the carriage. There is a definite sort of comfort to be found in the thrum of shared blood. Family, at the very least, is always a constant source of security. When she spies Scorpius and the others from the window, Lily presses herself further inside.

"Thanks. I couldn't stand another minute with them," Lily mutters darkly, jerking her chin toward the window.

"But they're your housemates, aren't they?" a petite brunette asks.

"That doesn't mean I've got to like them, does it?"

"Course not, Lils. It's alright, you've got us lot. We'll take care of you," Dom declares, producing a flask from the folds of her robes. "Cheers, to another fantastic school year."

The other girls twitter with laughter, each taking a significant swig of whatever Dom had poured from Uncle Bill and Auntie Fleur's liquor selection. The pudgy blonde girl next to Lily takes a long, gulping drink and passes it off into her small freckled hands. Hesitantly, she takes the flask, weighing it in her grasp. She's never had alcohol before, not an especially surprising fact, since she'd only turned twelve at the end of last term. Undoubtedly she won't be getting drunk from a swallow off a shared sampling of some, but all the same, it still isn't exactly a tempting offer.

"Go on then, doll, have a go," Dom says with a pretty wink. "Drink up, it'll do you good."

"You're letting the little titch have some? You're so bad, Dom!"

"I'm a lot of things," Dominique replies darkly. "But don't worry, I won't force you, Lils."

Lily pauses for a moment, sloshing the remaining liquor in the flask. Making a quick decision, she passes it back to the blonde girl without taking her share. True to her word, Dominique does nothing to change Lily's mind. The others hurriedly finish off their illegal contraband between them all and Dom stuffs it back into her pocket just as the carriage pulls up to the gates of the castle. Stepping out, they begin the short walk to the Great Hall together. Close behind her, Lily hears the unnamed blonde girl tutting in disapproval.

"What is it?" Lily snaps.

"It's bad luck not to drink a toast," she says reproachfully. "You're going to have a difficult year, I think."

"Don't be such a bitch, Wendi," Dominique laughs. "She'll do just fine."

As they cross the threshold into the room full of raucous students dressed in school robes and hats anxiously awaiting the sorting, Lily tries to keep herself from searching for Scorpius. But intentionally or not, her dark eyes scan through a hundred eager faces, never finding what she _hadn't_ been looking for. Most of her cousins and her brothers have already taken up seats at the appropriate tables, though, and they all wave in turn. Dominique and her friends slow as they reach the Ravenclaw table, and Lily stops to say goodbye to her cousin.

"Don't listen to the others, Lily, you're going to have a _fantastic_ year."

Lily smiles into the red of her cousin's hair and pretends not to notice the lingering scent of alcohol on her breath. She releases her and watches with a slight smile as the older girl takes a seat at the center of the table, immediately attracting the attention of her housemates. Though Lily has no doubt when she finds a spot at her own table she'll inspire a similar reaction from her fellow Slytherins, it will be for an entirely different reason.

"Are you lost, Potter?"

There are indeed very few sounds that Lily Potter utterly detests. The sound of her alarm clock is one. The unbearably shrill screech of Albus' owl Dorie, another, and of course, ranking somewhere between _'utterly detestable' _and _'absolutely unbearable'_ is the stupid horsey laugh of Posey Parkinson. As a generally pessimistic person, Lily had been quick to internally agree with Wendi's forecast for a difficult second year. And as it seems now, Wendi will have a very successful future in the divination business.

"I'm not lost, Parkinson, I've just stopped to think for a moment. I'm sure you're unfamiliar with the concept," Lily replies snottily, glaring at the dark-haired girl next to her.

"Of course you're right, Potter. I'm sure you don't know this but most of us can think and move at the same time," Parkinson sniggers. "But whenever you're through using whatever it is you call a brain, the Slytherin table is in that direction."

Without waiting for a response, Posey saunters off to a seat next to a simpering Sarah Smith, who has reserved the space next to her. Left behind to boil in anger, Lily resists the overpowering urge to extract her wand and make it so Posey could never laugh her stupid horsey laugh ever again. With her fists tightened into the folds of her robes, Lily is so engrossed in her elaborate plans for revenge that she nearly jumps out of her skin when a small hand comes to rest on her shoulder. Spinning around quickly, she finds Evelyn Tremlett standing there, adjusting her cat-eyed glasses.

"She's awful, yeah?" Evelyn says quietly, tucking some golden hair behind an ear. "I hate her sometimes."

"I hate her all the time," Lily replies, blinking in surprise.

"Ignore her. Maybe she'll go away?"

"Oh, believe me, I've tried that. I think the only solution is to glue her mouth shut with a permanent sticking charm. Too bad I'm useless at charms."

"I think I'm quite good at them. We'll practice together and surprise her one day," Evelyn says with a smile. "You're alright. Let's sit together, okay?"

Lily watches her pass, still in a mild shock. It's the most she's ever heard Evelyn say at one time, and it has been said to her, of all people. As she takes the seat to Evelyn's right, Lily feels a bit like she's in some kind of wacked out dream. Down the end of the table, she spies Sarah, Posey, Xavier— all the usual suspects. They wave condescendingly, their faces twisted masks of amusement at her expense. Further still, she can make out Hattie and Alexi, engaged in some manner of conversation, and Scorpius, his face blank and turned toward his friends. They're all such incredibly different people, and yet they're all members of the same house. Evelyn touches the sleeve of her robe, indicating that the Deputy Head has arrived with this year's stock of students. Perhaps, Lily thinks silently as Abernathy, Annette steps forward, she's been over-generalizing.

There is a fragile, frail ray of hope under the acid burn of her bitter expectations, but Lily is beginning to look forward to second year.

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A/N: There you are, please review and let me know what you think! Also, fun fact, there was a version where she did indeed drink from the flask and then I was like, oh wait she's 12, not 22. How silly of me. Anyway I hope you liked the OCs and the Weasleys as much as I do.

A/N II: Apparently I've been spelling Scorpius wrong this whole time? And no one pointed it out until now, because I'm too lazy to get a beta (which, okay, I probably should, but let's leave that alone for now). This chapter's fixed but I'll be making minor edits to the rest of the story fairly soon, I guess. Sorry about that!


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